Tilts

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To lean or incline at an angle while also describing an action that causes a shift or change in position
2. To position something at a slant or angle while potentially affecting the balance or alignment of that object
3. To deviate from an upright stance while implying an alteration in the orientation or direction of movement

Etymology: The verb "tilt" was once a word for unsteadiness. Its Old English ancestor, a verb reconstructed as "tyltan" or "tieltan", meant "to be unsteady," and it went with an adjective, "tealt," meaning shaky or unstable. Both trace back to a prehistoric root meaning to shake or hesitate, which also gave modern Dutch "touteren," meaning to tremble, and Icelandic "tölt," an ambling horse's gait. The sense of deliberately setting something at an angle came later, arriving in the 1590s, and the intransitive use, where something leans on its own, appeared around 1620. The jousting sense is the most colorful branch. By about 1510, "tilt" named the contest itself, probably taken from the barrier that separated the two riders. That barrier shares its origin with a second, unrelated "tilt," meaning a canvas cover, which in turn comes from Old English "teld," a tent. The two words likely blurred together over time, so the knightly tournament and the canvas covering have distinct roots that happened to converge in English.

Synonyms: leans, slants, inclines

Antonyms: levels, aligns